One of the presidential candidates in Tuesday's primary have attended campaign boot camp. But two California congressional candidates have, and come November there will be many more nationwide that have graduated from the seminars organized by Christine Pelosi, who is 41 and lives in a South Beach apartment.

"Campaign boot camp started as an opportunity to work in a grassroots way with people who were running for Congress. Colleagues on the Democratic National Committee were batting around different possibilities. I said, 'We should have boot camps.' My firm belief is that people who aspire to public service should have the best advice up front, as they decide whether to run and the people decide whether to support them.

The name 'boot camp' was inspired by my work with veterans. I co-founded the DNC Veterans and Military Families Council, in 2005. The first boot camp was at a hotel in downtown Phoenix for 19 congressional candidates. We ended up working with 40 candidates, 19 in the fall and 21 in the spring. Twelve of them were elected as new members of Congress in 2006.

After that election I wanted to convert my blog postings into a book, using examples from the 2006 election, and also going back to my history as the granddaughter of the mayor of Baltimore and daughter of a member of Congress. 'Campaign Boot Camp: Basic Training for Future Leaders' came out in November 2007. I wrote the book as a call to service for the next generation of leaders. This is advice for everybody. Rather than hire a high-priced consultant, people can pick up the book, read the advice of public service all-stars and be ready to run.

The interesting thing about writing the book was being able to learn from people with a diversity of political philosophies. When I was a prosecutor in San Francisco I would get advice on trying cases from public defenders and defense attorneys. As a baseball fan I know that the best advice about hitting comes from the other team's pitcher.

We'll have several boot camps in the spring for candidates and activists. I'm also trying to put one together for emerging women leaders in San Francisco, in March. Because a campaign is the fusion of a large social movement and a small business startup, the lessons are applicable to initiative campaigns and to the work of nonprofit organizations. Immediately after the California primary I'll be flying to Dallas for a boot camp with the Susan G. Komen Foundation in their work to find a cure for breast cancer.

One of the highlights of our Chicago Boot Camp, in October 2007, was the speaker of the House coming back and telling the candidates her personal story about when she ran for Congress in 1987 and how in the space of seven weeks she had 120 house meetings. She said, 'Whoever owns the ground wins the election.'

The other highlight was to have Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, who won one of the most competitive races in 2006, come back as a boot camp alum and talk to the candidates about what it was like. As he kept saying, 'I won because I walked.' One of the candidates e-mailed me a couple of weeks later and said, 'Next time I'm going to be the alum that comes back as a member of Congress."

We are looking for Bay Area people with innovative ideas who have put them to use. Please e-mail candidates to brightideas@sfchronicle.com.

The Lightbulb: It started during the campaign in 2004 when, very late, we found out about a candidate's criminal past. When he was being confronted by one of his angry supporters, he said 'Well, I told you I had convictions,' and we thought, there's got to be another way. We have to be able to determine someone's fitness for office.